I found the Golden Lions Schools teams for the upcoming
youth weeks, released this week, disturbing.
I have no reason to doubt the honesty of the selectors, and
the players named are the best in their positions, I’m sure. But the picture
painted is a very sad one. What it shows is that schools rugby in the province
has all but died. People at schools are screaming bias and unfair treatment on
social media. I can’t comment on that, but I do believe that an organisation
that exists to promote rugby at schools in its region has done the game harm
with this selection.
In short – there were 115 boys named (in the five squads of
23). And 93 percent of them come from five schools, Monument (25), Helpmekaar
(23), Noordheuwel (20), KES (19) and Jeppe (19). There are three players from
Northcliff, two from St John’s, and one each from Parktown, Linden and
Dinamika. That’s out of 40 rugby-playing schools in the province.
I spoke to one of the teachers at Jeppe who is on the
committee and he told me that they were expecting to take flak, and that the
Covid-19 pandemic is responsible for the most lop-sided team lists I’ve seen in
my 40-odd years of involvement.
During the Covid lockdown and its restrictions, schools who
take sport seriously found ways to keep their learners active and interested.
Some were very innovative and used technology well, Others, I suspect, skated
close to flaunting the regulations. Of course the rugby
players at those sorts of schools had a leg up over those at schools who did
nothing during that period. The result has been that when play resumed in full
this year the gap between the top schools and rest, which was already growing
before Covid hit, suddenly got much bigger.
That’s why, apparently, there are good players at only five
of our schools, and none at any of the others (apart from the handful who did
get the nod).
The gap’s a reality I guess, but it’s disappointing that the
powers that be aren’t using the opportunity to do what they can to remedy it.
Instead, it seems they are happy to let the strong get stronger and stronger,
and have the weak disappear.
It’s not the organising committee’s fault that strong are
getting stronger and the weak are vanishing. It’s the result of the scorched-earth
practices of the schools who lure the best of the available talent into their grade
8 intakes, and then send out raiding parties to mop up whoever might have
slipped their nets, or are late developers who may have become good players
within the programmes at the schools they are at.
It's part of the winning formula, and when winning is your
value you don’t much care about the ruins you leave behind.
Don’t the Lions schools committee see that they have a
responsibility to the schools who are battling to keep the game alive? If they
simply say, ‘none of your players are worth looking at’, they are inviting the
raiders in and you can’t blame the parents of good players for taking the bait.
Here’s an idea – not an original one, the Lions have
actually done it before, but clearly decided not to carry on with it. Choose a
few players from those struggling schools in the Welpies (C) team. That team’s
results really don’t mean a thing, so why not pick the best player from each of
St David’s, St Stithians, Fourways, Rand Park and Trinityhouse, for example. Producing
a provincial player will do those schools much good. It will reward the efforts
of those hard-working coaches, and keep the game alive for another year (which
is not always a given at some schools).
And there are always one or two boys who can play at those
schools – I’ve been watching them for years. Instead, however, there are six
Monument boys, four from Helpmekaar. five from KES and three from Jeppe in the
Welpies - a team that doesn’t go to a major week.
Good for those boys, but bad for the game, fatal even.
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